Tag: ISSA

This post is a copy/paste of an accepted abstract that will be presented at the 2013 International Sociology of Sport Association’s World Congress of the Sociology of Sport Congress in Vancouver, Canada (See: http://issa2013.org/).

ISSA2013 PROPOSAL

TITLE: Nationalism and the National Basketball Association finals: An analysis of announcer discourse

AUTHORS: Olan Kees Martin Scott & Dwight Zakus

ABSTRACT: One of the key themes of contemporary media is to entertain the audience; a central “function of the media [is] for diversion and enjoyment, in which the media provide stories, features, music, and films to make audiences laugh, cry, relax, or reflect rather than gain information” (Wilson, Gutierrez, & Chao, 2003, p. 40). Through the framing of sport broadcasts, which become the individual scripted storylines, commercial media seek to generate a large viewership as possible in order to on-sell viewers to advertisers and sponsors. Entman (2007) suggests that framing is a “process of culling a few elements of a perceived reality and assembling a narrative that highlights connections among them to promote a particular interpretation” (p. 164). As such, this study seeks to uncover how the concept of nationalism was portrayed by commentators during the broadcasts of the 2011 National Basketball Association finals. Further, the scripting tactics will be uncovered that were employed by sportscasters to possibly enhance the salience of storylines to viewers through a post hoc reconstruction of scripts. While a wide body of literature exists on nationalism and sport, this research analyses a series of events not often studied, an NBA finals. A content analysis of announcer discourse will be conducted to uncover how American (N=22) and international (N=8) professional basketball players were portrayed by announcers. A reliable and validated 15 category taxonomy (Scott, Hill, & Zakus, in press) will be used to analyze and evaluate the frames that were used by announcers to depict NBA players.

Welcome to my site

Join me on my journey through my research career and sharing my publishing stories. At current, I live in Canberra, Australia's capital city.. This blog will feature posts of my research, teaching, my life in a foreign country (Australia) and other musings on all things that come to mind.

BIO
Dr Olan Scott is an assistant professor in sport management at University of Canberra. My research into sport media particularly focuses on the mainstream media and fan engagement in social media.
I am heavily involved in industry-focused research including social media marketing, fan development, strategic planning, and brand-awareness market research

SUMMARY
Sport and the love of sport are among the defining characteristics of Australia and its people and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry to boot.
I delve into the complex point where these two factors meet, in the media and how sport is presented to its audience. My investigation examines how events are framed by the media for audience interpretation. In addition, I also research the use of social media, leading projects involved in social media marketing for professional sports teams.
My research provides a greater understanding of the way sports governing bodies, teams and players interact with the paying public to build their loyalty base. Understanding and improving the way the industry approaches and engages with fans offers sports an opportunity to improve its positive societal role.